1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to modular ramps, and more particularly to a walkway ramp assembly which is fabricated in sections at one site and assembled with minimal effort at its final site.
2. Prior Art
Ramps are becoming increasingly common, due primarily to governmental requirements to access of building sites by handicapped people and the like. Ramps assist those people confined to wheelchairs or who use walkers, by providing access to public transportation, to public and private buildings and stores. Each ramp site may be generally different from other ramp sites. Ramps, therefore, should be adaptable and designed to minimize the cost and involvement in initial fabrication and final at-site assembly.
Prefabrication of walkways is not necessarily new, as it may be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,445,802 to Loov. This patent shows a series of concrete elements which may have an arcuate turn or a curb side arrangement thereon to develop a concrete walking path. A further prefabricated assembly is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,712,187 to Stelling. This patent shows a series of concrete panels which are supported by service modules which have access bores there through. The panels of this prefabricated system, however, are not solid and are, therefore, somewhat more expensive to construct.
A yet further modular ramp is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,807,317 to Quinn et al, wherein P.V.C. plumbing components are utilized as leg assemblies supporting via a framework, a plurality of wooden frame panels. The disadvantages of such a system are obvious to those who may have ever walked along a boardwalk. Grooves, nails and splinters of the like could certainly be a hinderance to any handicapped traveler thereon.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a modular sidewalk ramp assembly, which is easily manufacturable at a simple factory and which is easily assemblable and modifiable at an assembly site.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide a ramp assembly whose panel components are all of a duplicate rectangular configuration and all of which panels may be of the same dimension.
It is still yet a further object of the present invention to provide a securement system so that those individual panels might be secured to one another in a fail safe manner independent of the longitudinal axis of that particular panel.